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| Prison workers, state reach settlement |
| By The News Tribune |
| Published: 11/08/2004 |
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It was only nine minutes, but it was their time, and the state's corrections lieutenants and sergeants wanted to be paid for it. So the Washington Department of Corrections has agreed to pay $810,000 to settle a lawsuit with about 600 prison employees who said they were spending time each day doing work they weren't getting paid to do. The agreement, which still needs to be approved by a judge in December, followed a $7.2 million settlement the Department of Corrections approved in May to end a practically identical suit by corrections officers at prisons across the state. Both settlements must be funded by the Legislature this session, or the cases will go to trial. The latest lawsuit, which was settled two weeks ago, was filed by Sgts. Bob Arrasmith, Rodney Norbye and Michael Delgado and Lts. David Baumgartner and Frank Fitzpatrick on behalf of hundreds of state employees. The sergeants and lieutenants, who share about 300 full-time positions, said they had to work extra minutes at the end of their shifts to prepare incoming workers and exchange equipment. The settlement covers a period that started April 27, 2001, and ended last Monday. The Department of Corrections said the activities at issue weren't things for which employees should be paid. Assistant attorney general Kara Larsen said those duties were minimal - picking up a set of keys or a pair of handcuffs. Workers keep logs of what happened on their shifts, so they don't need to talk to each other to find out what happened on the last shift, she said. But Larsen and co-counsel Stewart Johnston said while federal law has detailed guidelines about what kinds of employee tasks require payment, state law isn't so clear. "This lawsuit was brought under state law, and the state law is not the same as federal law on this issue," Johnston said. "So we're looking at a large class-action (lawsuit) with a significant amount of overtime. We denied that this was compensable time. At the same point, we recognize if we went through a trial process, there was a significant possibility there would be an adverse ruling for us." As of last Monday, shifts for correctional officers, sergeants and lieutenants overlap, so they can talk without having to come in early or stay late. Instead of working eight hours straight and eating while they work, the employees will work 81/2-hour shifts with an unpaid half-hour in the middle. Ellsworth predicted that will bring problem, too, because the Department of Corrections will now need to cover workers' lunch breaks in the middle of the day. In addition to suing the Department of Corrections on behalf of the corrections officers, lieutenants and sergeants, Ellsworth has filed similar lawsuits against the state Department of Transportation on behalf of engine room employees working on state ferries and against the state Department of Social and Health Services on behalf of officers who work in juvenile rehabilitation centers. |
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